The Price of Freedom
by Corvus corone
Summary: Obviously, violence and blood magic are not the answers to imprisonment in the Circle Tower. Surana with his chicken-hatted minions and Anders with his templar-themed brothel think they may have hit on a better solution. Amell is not pleased.


_Written for a prompt on livejournal. I've already completely anonfailed on this one, so I don't suppose it's asking too much if I post it here too?_

**The Price of Freedom**

**Xox**

"I have a brilliant idea," announced Surana one day in the tower library. He waited patiently for the other mage to put down his book and notice him.

Amell was another half minute before he sighed, closed his eyes briefly, and then opened them again to see Surana still standing there beaming triumphantly. "What is it now?"

"We should wear chickens."

Surana was a little off-kilter at the best of times, always seeming to be mumbling something about sparkles and bug-filled codex entries – whatever those were – but this really was pushing it. Amell closed his eyes again. "Chickens?"

"Chickens! We should wear them. As hats!" Surana was now bouncing. Amell tried not to look; it was making him feel dizzy.

"And why in the Maker's buttcrack would you ever want to wear a bloody chicken as a hat?"

"It's a symbol of freedom and... and... we need to show the templars who's the boss round here!"

"What, you in a chicken hat?"

"Exactly!" Surana paused. "Well, not exactly. I mean, us in general. The mages!"

"And the chickens?"

"Everyone likes chickens," Surana said defensively.

Xox

The next morning, Surana marched into the Great Hall with a strangely floppy-looking chicken on his head. Amell groaned, and buried his face in a rack of toast.

"Unite, my fellow mages!" Surana was now shouting. "Rise up against our oppressive templar masters! Wear the, uh, poultrous symbol of liberty upon your head so that they may see our courage!"

"Shut up, you crazy moron!" hissed Amell, pulling him down. Too late. The templar was already there. "Oh, Maker..."

"What is the meaning of this?" said the templar, his voice strange through the metal of his helmet. "You are causing a commotion."

"It's nothing," said Amell quickly before Surana could speak. "Just a joke! Honest!"

"It's not a joke!" Surana said. "The sacred figure of the fowl is-"

"Shut up!" Amell said, putting a hand to Surana's mouth. "Really, I'm sorry," he said to the templar. "He fell out of his top-height bunk bed and banged his head pretty hard, I tell you. I'll get Wynne to sort him out as soon as possible, I promise."

"I did not!" said Surana, struggling out of Amell's grasp. "Anyway, last night I was in _your_ b-"

Amell stepped on his foot. Hard. "See? Totally crazy. I mean, only a completely insane idiot of a mage would be wandering around at night and not sleeping in his very own bed. Ha! Really." Dear Maker, this was just getting worse and worse.

"Hmm," said the templar. He might have been giving them both a dirty and suspicious look, but it was hard to tell under the face-covering helmet. "I will talk to Knight-Commander Gregoir, but if I catch this elf shouting about Maker knows what again..."

"Pretty nice guy," said Amell once the templar had returned to his position by the wall. The rest of the hall was still staring at them. "Lucky us."

"You squashed my chicken!" said Surana indignantly. "Look at it!"

"What's it even made out of?" Amell poked the thing. It made a 'boing!' sound under his fingertips.

"Oh, you know, magic. And stuff. And hope. And independence."

"Maker help me."

Xox

Amell returned to the dormitories after a pleasingly full day of kitten-petting and self-study to find the whole room filled with chicken hats (as well as the various mages underneath them).

"I'm so proud of them!" gushed Surana, hugging him joyfully and somehow managing to put a 'poultrous symbol of liberty' on his head at the same time.

"One: get off. Two: get that thing off. How- why – how did this happen?"

"Some of us are even making banners now!" Surana pointed to a group of apprentices, who were gathered underneath a sign reading, 'FOWL LIVE IN FREEDOM, WHY CAN'T WE?'. "I think we could even make that one an uplifting chant!"

"Wonderful," said Amell, not really feeling it. "Where's Jowan?" Surely there must be at least one other person in this madhouse who had escaped Surana's clutches...

Xox

"To be honest, I can't see how this is going to work," admitted Jowan in the bathroom. (There was nowhere else to hide. Surana's chicken-hatted minions were everywhere.) "I don't know... surely for a real rebellion we need to do something more?"

"Like what? Get Mr Wiggums to lead his army of kitten spawn to besiege the fourth floor?" said Amell. If he was to be completely truthful with himself, he had to admit that he didn't exactly mind the whole arrangement as it was... none of these campaigns to throw out the templars had ever really interested him. "Stink them out with cheese? Maybe try a little blood magic?"

Jowan squeaked. "No! I mean, I'd never... I mean, no. I don't know. Maybe we could ask the senior mages for help."

"I don't know about that, but-" There was a squeal of '-and the free-range birds of the fields-' and a thump in the doorway – Amell quickly slammed the door shut again. "-but... oh Maker, this is just getting stupid. How the hell did he manage to get all those followers, anyway?"

Xox

Surana and a few of his most loyal followers were running various errands around the Tower. In Surana's case, this involved standing at the door of the templar quarters putting well-matured cheese in strategic places. (Amell obviously knew him too well.) He congratulated himself on a job well done, turned to leave, and crashed straight into a pile of robes.

"Oi, watch it!" said the pile of robes, picking itself up. "Wh- is that a chicken on your head? And what're you doing up here, anyway?"

"I could ask the same for you!" said Surana, drawing himself up to his full height. "Except the chicken bit, I suppose. Who am I talking to, anyway?"

Since Surana was both an elf and standing two steps below the other (human) mage, his full height wasn't exactly very intimidating. The mage sighed, pulled his ruined hair back into a ponytail and said, "It's Anders, chickenhead. I suppose this is going to be about what's happening downstairs, isn't it?"

Surana shook his head. Wait, there was something about that Anders mage that he needed to remember... something that was possibly very, very bad. Oh well. Never mind. "Ah! I didn't recognise you without the ponytail. And yes! I am proud to announce that the first phase of our rebellion is well underway."

"Our... rebellion?" Anders glanced towards the cheese-filled door to the fourth floor. "Let's go somewhere else, shall we?"

They reached the Great Hall. Surana repositioned his chicken hat and sat down. "Yes, that's right! Our rebellion. Obviously, pure force and violence are not the answer – I don't believe in fighting, you see, and I am of the definite opinion that pacifism is the only real solution to the world's problems – so instead I propose that we peacefully seek a resolution through demonstrations and... stuff."

"What, like cheese and chickens?" Anders frowned. "And you expect the Chantry to, what, just go along with it? Pardon me for saying it, but you... you're crazy. And possibly insane."

"... er ... well, you can't talk! I heard you tried your fourth escape only two weeks ago," said Surana, glaring. Was that what he'd needed to remember about Anders? No, probably not.

"Yes, but..." Anders spluttered a bit.

"Aha!"

"So what else are you doing then? Not that I want to join your group of crazies, mind, but it does sound all kinds of intriguing."

"Uh... I don't really know yet," said Surana. "I'm really making it up as I go along. You don't happen to have any good ideas, do you?"

Anders shrugged. "You're going to have to do something big. Orgies in the library. Advertise in Redcliffe for discount templar rent boys. Get every single mage in this place to hit on Greagoir as soon as he comes down for breakfast; that should be fun. Good enough for you?"

"Ooh," said Surana. "Are you sure you don't want to help?"

"Very, very sure."

"Really? Because maybe if you got some girls in from the town, you could put them-"

Anders peered closer through the darkness. "Wait a moment. I do know you. You're that elf kid who keeps... _hanging around_ with Amell, aren't you?"

Oh. Wait. Was _that_ what it was...? Damn it, he knew he'd forgotten something! "Uh... and you are saying this because you...?"

"What? Alright, little miss elf kid, you're getting back to your room right this instant unless you want my foot up your backside, and not in a good way. Get out of here!"

"Hey!" said Surana, a little offended. "We were just having a nice conversation! Are you sure you don't want to set up a templar-themed brothel?"

"Shut your mouth and just get out!" said Anders, who secretly wasn't so sure that he didn't.

Xox

"Excuse me, I was just passing by and I couldn't help but hear that there's a templar-themed, um, _place_ on the fourth floor?" said the woman. She was shifting around nervously. "Um, I just wanted to know if..."

Amell gulped. "A _place_?"

"If you know what I mean."

Amell was pretty sure that he didn't, but he nodded understandingly anyway. (Strangely enough, there were no templars at the door today – he didn't want to think what Surana had done with them.) "Well, there are certainly templars about. You can find them on the fourth floor, like you said. Just keep going up the stairs." Feeling sure that he was making a terrible mistake, he sat back down and went back to his book on pedigree cat breeding.

After the next four women and one man had asked him what boiled to basically the same question, Amell was feeling a little disconcerted. What exactly was Surana doing up there? He supposed he would just have to go up himself and check. He hadn't seen any other apprentices all day, and he wondered vaguely where Jowan had got to. Hopefully he hadn't caved and been inducted into the chicken-hat cult. Faint echoes of such words as "-live in freedom, why can't-" floated through the halls, but Amell still couldn't see anyone.

The templar quarters smelt faintly of cheese. Well, that was a bit strange. The door to the fourth floor was open, and Amell couldn't see anyone through it. Where were the templars?

"Oh, look who it is," said Anders, holding a wriggling Mr Wiggums. The ball of fluff flopped out of his arms and gave Amell's legs a cat-hug.

"Auergh!" said Amell, thrown off balance both literally by the cat attached to his knees and metaphorically by Anders's sudden appearance. "What? Where's Surana? Did he do this? No, wait there one moment, what exactly _is_ this?"

Anders sniffed and glanced down at Amell's cat-covered feet. "I don't even know why he likes you more," he said, a hint of whine creeping in. "Just because you looked after his mum and got her a nice tom to have babies with... I bet he compares me to you all the time while I'm cuddling him."

"Eh? What, Surana? You..."

Anders gave him a Look. "Yes, Surana. Of course."

"What? You meant the cat?"

Anders sighed in exasperation. "Yes, of course I meant the cat! And no, the elf's not up here. I'll have you know that I organised the whole thing myself." He beamed proudly.

"What thing?"

"Oh, you know, the whole whorehouse thing. It's getting rather popular, you know! I've already had a dozen clients in just this morning."

"Wow," said Amell, not really registering what he was saying.

"I keep telling the templars that it's all good fund-raising fun, but they don't seem to believe me," Anders continued. "Luckily I haven't had too many complaints so far, but some of them do seem to need a little more persuasion than others..."

"Huh." Amell looked at him blankly. "You... You turned the templar quarters into a _brothel_?"

"You just noticed?"

"But what, who's doing the, you know, th- the templars?"

"No, no, I've just got some boys in from the town. Templars are a bit of a pest to control, what with the whole draining magic thing. Luckily, I've got most of them locked up in the storage cupboards... except Greagoir, who's probably wandering around somewhere downstairs."

"Huh," said Amell again, completely lost for words.

"I think a few of them might have escaped, though." Anders thought for a moment. "Nah, they won't disturb me. Say, do you want a turn? It's just twenty silvers an hour, and you get a discount for being a mage, so... let's say fifteen?"

"No," said Amell firmly. "No I do not."

Anders laughed. "Sure. Now, give me Mr Wiggums back and stop putting off the visitors."

Shaking his head, Amell picked up the squirming cat and handed it to Anders. "Did Surana put you up to this?"

"Absolutely not!"

"If you say so," Amell said, sighing and patting the cat's head. Mr Wiggums seemed a little disappointed to be back in Anders's arms. "If it's any consolation, I've never compared you to him or anyone else."

Anders narrowed his eyes. "Are you talking about Mr Wiggums or what?"

"Or what, what? What else _would_ I be talking about?" Amell said, confused. "... you know, I think I should go."

Xox

"Hello, Wynne!" said Surana cheerfully, revolving leisurely on the spot.

"Ah, hello Surana," said Wynne, turning around to smile warmly at him. "I must admit I've no idea what's happening in the Tower today, but I've heard that this is all down to you?"

"You mean the whole idea of dancing the quickstep with your staff whenever a templar talks to us? Yes, that was all me! But the spinning-around-slowly-and-hypnotically part was down to... uh, someone else. I've forgotten who it was now."

"Yes, I see, but you can stop spinning now. Surely it must make you rather dizzy... Can I ask what the point of all this is?" She gestured to his headgear.

"Ooh, do you want one?"

"... no, I don't think I do."

"You know, you could help out here too! Why don't you organise... I don't know..."

"But why are you doing it?"

Surana was momentarily lost for words. "Um. To be honest, I just started it to annoy Amell, but it seems that all the apprentices started taking it really seriously! It's really good, actually. I haven't even seen a single templar today, so it must be working!"

"Yes, I've heard that Anders is keeping them all busy upstairs."

"Anders...? Ooh, he _did_ do it after all! Well, can you just help by spreading the word of chicken-inspired freedom and all that? You could start wearing cupcakes in your robes or something interesting like that."

Wynne nodded slowly. "It certainly is an idea," she said cautiously.

"I'm going to ask the kitchens for some now!"

Xox

"Of course cupcakes are a symbol of freedom!" Surana said. "Didn't you know? Why, the Great Cupcake is no less than the second-most worshipped god in Nevarra, and his temples are sacred places for all who seek independence and understanding."

"Are you sure?" said Jowan doubtfully. "Because I thought the chickens were bad enough, but now that everyone's wearing yesterday's brownies as jewellery items, I don't think I know where you're going with this..."

"... yes, well, I don't either. But it's still fun! I love winding up the templars. Who knows; we might actually get somewhere with this!"

"Where?"

"Freedom, of course. The underlying plan is to... to do... something... well, have you visited the fourth floor brothel yet? It's only about fifteen silvers to get in!"

"Have _you_?" said Jowan, rather shocked. "Um... I'm just going to speak to, um, Senior Enchanter Uldred... or someone... yes. Bye!"

Xox

"First Enchanter! I think Surana's gone too far; he's – oh Maker." Amell put a hand to his eyes, counted to three, and then looked up again. No, he hadn't imagined it. His brain was more than a little surprised to see the First Enchanter wearing an iced muffin pendant around his neck and a golden rooster on his head.

"Yes? Amell, is it?"

"You- you-"

"It's all good fun, really," said Irving, smiling kindly. "I daresay you'll be joining us in the library for the noodle throwing competition?"

"Noodle throwing competition? In the library? In the _bloody_ _library_? With the books in there?"

"Ah, we'll try to avoid the books. In any case, there may be some slightly more... interesting activities in the library later on this evening, but we shall try the noodle flinging first."

"What? You're doing _what_ in the library?"

"Oh, not me personally," said Irving, standing up. "Anyhow, I believe young Surana is currently running an 'adopt-an-eggplant' foundation in the Great Hall, and I was meaning to visit that this afternoon. Was there anything that you specifically needed from me?"

Amell gaped. "You're adopting an eggplant," he said flatly. "Right. Where's Knight-Commander Greagoir?"

"I believe I saw him in the Apprentice Quarters not a half hour ago, although whether he has managed to fight off the slew of young mages throwing themselves at him is an open question."

"... I see."

Xox

Anders had made five hundred and twenty-six silver pieces, and this was just the first day. Really, this was quite the lucrative career choice.

Xox

Although Greagoir had managed to drain enough mana to fill Lake Calenhad, he was still no match for a horde of raging chicken-wearing teenagers hurling themselves bodily at his crotch. He wasn't sure if this called for a smiting, or maybe just a few quick blows to various heads, but right now he didn't really have a choice. A group of them had managed to pin his arms behind his back and were now greedily pulling off his gauntlets in order to do _things_ to his fingers.

"Stop!" shouted Amell, marching into the room.

Nothing happened.

A few quick freezing spells later, and Greagoir was free to stagger out from under the piles of iced apprentice mages. Well, that worked.

"Yes...?" Greagoir wasn't too sure what had just happened, but his overwhelmed mind did register one mage still standing and conscious in front of him. Now what?

"Gah!" said Amell in frustration. "Why don't you and your templars actually go ahead do something about this? Why am I the only person in this place with even a hint of sense? Go and get your templars to sort this bloody stupid Surana mess out and for the Maker's sake, don't let them have an orgy in my library!"

"I am trying!" said Gregoir testily. "You mages are the ones to blame for this chaos!" He exhaled heavily. "This is getting too much."

"You're telling me!"

"Well, what is it? Are you going to start dancing the Nevarran tango with your hat? What more craziness can I expect?"

"What? No! I hate this just as much as you do!" Amell realised that he was flailing a little, and so stopped. "I just want things to go back to normal."

"Oh? Well, yes, I quite agree. I think I've had enough of this."

"So you're going to do something about it? Properly?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

Xox

Unfortunately for Amell's mental health, Greagoir's idea of 'doing something about it' turned out to be an early retirement citing an inability to deal with eggplant-babying cheesecake-decorated mages with an unholy penchant for the salsa. The rest of the templars had soon followed suit. It wasn't exactly what Amell had had in mind. Still, at least some people were happy (and after all, there were still the male prostitutes dressed up in stolen templar armour prancing around the fourth floor to make him feel at home).

"It actually worked!" said Surana in awe. "We're really, truly free! Wow... I didn't expect this..."

"Wasn't that your whole idea?"

"It was mostly just to wind you up," Surana admitted. "The whole freedom thing was a very nice bonus, though."

"Congratulations. It really bloody well worked."

"This is the greatest day of our lives!" said Jowan, walking up behind them. "To think that we finally freed ourselves, and without any bloodshed too. I can't believe you did it, Surana!"

"Nor can I!"

"Well done," muttered Amell.

"Aw, but we didn't even get to go down to the library to have an-"

"No no no no no!" said Amell. "That's it! You've driven out the templars; you don't have to keep going, and there is no way in the Maker's arsehole that I'm letting you do anything more in the library!"

"Yes, alright then," Surana said. Jowan sniggered. "Oh, wait, is The Templar's Treat going to stay open?"

"You... called it... the The Templar's Treat?"

"Or 'three-tees' for short."

"I don't know," Jowan said. "I haven't really been up there..."

"Oh well," said Surana, shrugging happily. "At least I still have my eggplant."

Xox

_A/N: This is obviously an extremely stupid AU to _You Said What Now?_, but the Anders/Amell/Surana thing is a definite link in both of them (wait, I did put the Anders/Amell/Surana hints into chapter 14, didn't I? No? Yeah, well, um. This fic is a hint of a backstory, I suppose; it involves Amell and his cat-breeding, as well as Surana being "able to categorically state that he was better in bed than Amell was", so there we go.). Sorry, I'm rambling now._


End file.
